ToEE is fucking awesome bros

[Gregz]

I'm literally saddened by the fact that after this, there's nothing more. No sequel, no expansion...nothing. How could this happen? Sure it was bugged to shit when it was released, but how could the awesome potential of this game and its assets have been squandered?

Sigh...okay now I am raging...

Nah, most people here would agree with you. Although the same could be said of all the Troika games.

Superb designers, writers, and programmers aren't enough to counterbalance poor management (which is what sunk Troika).

Looking Glass Studios suffered a similar fate.

 

[coldcrow]

Wasn't the engine edited so that one can exchange graphic assets to make an entire new game out of it? Or are there tools lacking? (mapper etc..) A new cRPG based on that engine would totally rock.

It's buggy as fuck in technical areas. Flaky pathfinding, pathfinding that causes slowdown bugs, defective hardcoded scripts that cause infinite cycles, "defective" copy protection that causes the Co8 team to use a no-cd that likely has a virus - since lots of antivirus like it so much they quarantine it, spell effects not going away, missing secret doors forcing you to restart, CTDs.

It's a great game though.

Please stop praising anti-virus progs. They are always snake-oil and a hindrance. In that case you should take time to read as what they classify it: generic trojan. Now comapre the size of the original file + modfied, latter one being like 95% smaller? I bet it is just a heuristic warning cause they cut the DRM code. and put a jump or wahtever in.

The other criticisms are valid though, the engine is great but so unoptimized. What tells its qualityi s that atari wouldn't release the source anyways.

 

[Elwro]

I had more fun with KotC than with ToEE, mostly due to ToEE's engine which stayed slow and unresponsive even though I replaced most of the parts in my computer. I'll give ToEE another try now that I have a rig which runs The Witcher 2 flawlessly in 1440x900; I hope controlling the party in ToEE will finally stop to be a pain.

 

[thesheeep]

Install some mod that removes the XP cap and then solo it.
Co8 mod also is a must, IMHO, since it adds spells and afaik removes level cap and adds higher-level feats, etc.

Also, yes, it does have the best implementation of D&D 3.5 rules. IMHO it even beats KotC with that, even if only due to more variety and some better UI.

The bad thing is, every time I try to complete the game, it destroys all my save games. Even if they're many hours apart from each other, the game somehow manages to corrupt all of them.

 

[Cynic]

I'm getting nervous about this corrupted save file business. I've read it a few times now, does backing up the saves regularly help? Co8 has a way to do that in the interface.

 

[Sitra Achara]

Yes, ToEE apparently suffers from some memory leaks.

Advice on corrupted saves:
1. Don't save during combat.
2. Don't use quicksave.
3. Avoid (or at least be really careful with) using the console to spawn items. If you spawn an illegal proto ID, it can cause mayhem.
4. If you notice things starting to go haywire, such as graphical glitches, missing secret doors, etc., immediately quit the game and revert to a previous save.
One particular manifestation of that is the 'jerkstop' phenomenon in the Hommlet outdoors, where move commands you issue are aborted by the game. As I said, quit and revert the save in that case.
5. Keep a few saves in rotation, plus a few periodic saves e.g. when you enter a new game area, in case you corrupt all your rotation saves.

Also, regarding the Node slowdowns, apparently it's caused by creatures' particle system spawning outside the game view. So if you kill everything it should be ok
It also seems that for some reason, exploring the map with your whole party invisible reduces the slowdowns to bearable stutter, if not a smooth sail. (I'd very much appreciate if more people tested this)

 

[J1M]

I'm getting nervous about this corrupted save file business. I've read it a few times now, does backing up the saves regularly help? Co8 has a way to do that in the interface.

I never saw any saving problems playing it at release. Only people who had problems are likely to say anything.

 

[Grunker]

I've never had a problem with it either, but I have multiple saves just in case.

 

[Cynic]

Actually I did experience this kind of bug. I was in the moathouse and I fled combat and saved. Then when I tried to reenter the room where the fight was, the game would crash. I just reverted to a previous save though. I'm on windows 7 (laptop keyboard) and for some reason I cant open the console. Shift ~ doesnt do anything at all, so I can't spawn any items anyway. Alright so it isn't something like all your save files get corrupted or something, it's more like you did something to cause a particular file to get corrupted and you can always revert if necessary. That's easy enough to deal with.

 

[Volourn]

Awesome character and combat system.

Not so awesome combat.

And, the rest (story, characters, and role-playing) are beyond shit.

 

[Cynic]

 

[AlaCarcuss]

Raise your hand if you don't know Dungeon and Dragons rules but finished ToEE.

That would be an achievement.

Actually, I know sweet FA about DnD but I found the excellent in-game help in both ToEE and KotC to be an awesome learning tool. Probably not comprehensive, but I sure as hell know a lot more about DnD (3.5 anyway) than I did before playing them.

Agree about the incredible (though buggy) engine. My hope is an indie like Heroic (KotC - who also recognizes how great the ToEE engine is) is someday successful enough to commit resources into re-creating and/or enhancing their own version of it.




Edit: Doesn't have to be an indie of course, but I doubt any major developers even consider TB as an option for their games anymore.

 

[felipepepe]

Actually, I know sweet FA about DnD but I found the excellent in-game help in both ToEE and KotC to be an awesome learning tool. Probably not comprehensive, but I sure as hell know a lot more about DnD (3.5 anyway) than I did before playing them.

I'm impressed bro, that's some real dedication. I've always tought it was "know D&D - love ToEE, best combat evar" & "Don't Know D&D - hate this shitty buggy game".

 

[deus101]

Its volurn being volurn, pay him no mind.

 

[Roguey]

Volourn's right, outside of the hill giant, the guards in the tower, the two lower levels of the temple, and the elemental planes, the encounter design is pretty meh. They even admitted in the post-mortem that they had practically no time in the schedule for monster placement and balancing. And the story, characters, and role playing are pretty much non-existent.

 

[Cynic]

Volourn's right

 

[Cynic]

Look, this is D&D, furthermore it's a Gygax module. It's simple in terms of story, but the setting, its atmosphere, mythos and understated style make it great. This is low level shit. It's not "I want to be the vorpal champion of fuckwall" it's just a bunch of adventurers going on a quest. Will they live? Will they die? It's the only game I have ever played that actually made me feel like I was playing on a table top with dice, and that's an achievement. A great one if you enjoyed playing D&D. I can't possibly bring myself to play a tabletop game now (I don't think...I haven't tried for about 15 years, not sure if I could take it seriously...) but this captures that magic feeling of rolling up some cool heroes (or villains!), and setting out on an adventure. For that, it is brilliant and in my opinion holds its own against other D&D games.

 

[Volourn]

TOEE was all about ph@t lewt. You got +3 equipment despite barely reaching 10th level FFS.

The story sucked, the characetrs sucked, the writing sucked,the role-playing while exisitng sucked (outside of the multiple endings), etc., etc.

TOEE is just not a good D&D campaign because Troika failed as DMs.

If TOEE made you feel liek youw ere playing pnp D&D you played in shitty campaigns.

TOEE had potential to be awesome.. and, it would ahve been... if Troika had LISTENED to me pre release.

 

[Cynic]

I played regular campaigns and epic campaigns. Our DM was great make no mistake. But I am yet to play a game that can even come close to an excellent campaign which FEELS like PnP D&D. Baldur's Gate, for all that I like about it, didn't really feel like D&D at all. It used the ruleset and world of FR, and then just did whatever the hell it wanted with the combat. By it's very nature, D&D cannot not be turn based. As soon as you remove that, it isn't really D&D anymore. This isn't inherently bad, it can work and be fun, but it won't feel like PnP which is my point exactly.

 

[deus101]

TOEE was all about ph@t lewt. You got +3 equipment despite barely reaching 10th level FFS.

The story sucked, the characetrs sucked, the writing sucked,the role-playing while exisitng sucked (outside of the multiple endings), etc., etc.

TOEE is just not a good D&D campaign because Troika failed as DMs.

If TOEE made you feel liek youw ere playing pnp D&D you played in shitty campaigns.

TOEE had potential to be awesome.. and, it would ahve been... if Troika had LISTENED to me pre release.

bullshitz


role-playing and good storyline does not beling in the same sentence, Bioware dosent understand that.

Also, Roleplaying SUCKED in every CRPG it has never been implemented as it is in PNP.

 

[Cynic]

You can't completely recreate the PnP experience which relies on spontaneous decisions and is completely open ended. A video game is a finite computer program, it can never match what a human mind can imagine, not yet anyway. What a game can do however, is take the fun elements from a pnp setting, and try to amplify these. Some focus on story, others on atmosphere, others on combat. Because of the nature of a program, choices are always complex and difficult to script. I would say the best cRPGs try to focus on a couple of these. ToEE has the ruleset, combat and atmosphere down very solidly. To be honest, I don't care about the story too much. It's ancillary to the excellent micromanagement of party members and some of the most enjoyable combat in an RPG. The great environments tell a story in of themselves anyway even if the writing that goes along with them is nothing spectacular.

 

[felipepepe]

IF only we could time-warp and give the ToEE Engine to Bioware develop Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale on it...

 

[Ebonsword]

By it's very nature, D&D cannot not be turn based.

Double negatives hurt my brain.

 

[Volourn]

"bullshitz


role-playing and good storyline does not beling in the same sentence, Bioware dosent understand that. "

You cna have good role-playing and story at the same time.

It's not hard and with a good Dm (me! roofles!) it happens all the time.

 

[Phelot]

Volourn's right, outside of the hill giant, the guards in the tower, the two lower levels of the temple, and the elemental planes, the encounter design is pretty meh. They even admitted in the post-mortem that they had practically no time in the schedule for monster placement and balancing. And the story, characters, and role playing are pretty much non-existent.

In vanilla, yeah at least from what I recall. Seems like the CO8 mod has changed things up enough to make it interesting. The guard tower is a lot of fun and raping the elemental armies in the temple is fun as well. TBH, after modding it, only Homlett seems boring.